A Woman's Hand

You never know where the idea for a novel will come from. Sometimes, it comes in a brilliant flash of inspiration; more often than not, from long, deliberate meditation. Occasionally, however, a story will be borne out of personal experience.

Writing a novel based on things that really happened can be tricky in that life doesn’t always provide a convenient denouement, drawing all the loose strands of the plot together. Relationships usually fade without drama, without leaving that niggling feeling of What if? Real people seldom die, are killed, or commit suicide in a timely manner—plot devices which are overused in novels—and sadly, there are few happily-ever-afters in real life.

That said, something happened a few years ago that had me remembering a past life of sorts, a time when I was thirty and simultaneously dating a number of women. One of them would become my first wife, another would become the quintessential woman scorned, and a third would become the wretched casualty of my fickle heart. Fifteen years later that third woman would write to tell me that she would never ever, ever forgive me for what I did to her.

And so, I present a third novel based in Japan about the curious relationships that occur between an American man and Japanese women. Consider it an Act of Contrition. Unorthodox in structure, I hope this novella doesn’t feel like an Act of Contrition for the reader, too.

Why do you think your relationship with Kei would last as long as it did?

Instability.

Instability?

Yes, instability. Uncertainty. Unpredictability. All those “ins” and “uns” that are like fuel to a fire. Although Kei and I met regularly—about once a week, sometimes more—there was never any guarantee that at the end of a date we would end up rolling in the sack. Most often we did not. A typical date, if you could call it that, involved the two of us walking in the evening under the branches of the willow trees along Meiji Avenue, talking about life. But every once in a while—usually when the imo jōchū [1]with umeboshi [2]she liked to drink went to her head—Kei would cuddle up next to me, rest that fragrant head of hers on my shoulder, and let me kiss her. The world could burn down around us and I wouldn’t have cared at all. It was that very unpredictability—not knowing when or where we would have sex again—that drove me mad with desire. It might be this afternoon; it might be two months from now; it might be at my home, in a dark alley, at a love hotel, or, yes, even on the deck of a yacht moored in the wharf at Minato. I would never know until she was lying naked below me, nipples like radio dials pointing upwards. The woman was as inscrutable as they come. And it was that very inscrutability, that unpredictability, which fired me up so and gave the relationship far more life than it would have everhad if Kei had just allowed me to get bored with what an easy a lay she actually was.

Excuse me?

I think Kei in her own way was forever trying to put the brakes on the relationship, to stop cheating on her husband—a man she really did intend to stay with until death did they part. But, by being inconsistent with her affection towards me she only succeeded in throwing fuel onto the fire. If we’d had a “normal” affair with regular sex, we probably wouldn’t have stayed together for nearly as long as we did.

[1]Imo jōchū (芋焼酎) is a clear, pungent liquor distilled from sweet potatoes. It is produced mainly in southern Kyūshū.